Inclement Weather
by Mikomi's Pen
Summary: A series of drabbles on Roy and Riza.
1. Duplicity

**"Duplicity"**

* * *

She did everything in twos.

There were always two warnings to get his damned work done before she pulled out the _big guns, _as it were. Three was society's custom, but two was hers.

There were always two letters sent home, one to her mother, one to her brother; they were mailed simultaneously in different envelopes, twice a year.

She always checked her ammunition twice. Her shots were always grouped in pairs: one-two to the chest, one-two to the head, and back; one-two to the shoulder, pause to estimate the enemy's capabilities, one-two once more. And before she moved on, she always checked the pulse at both the throat and wrist, regardless of what blood might stain her hands.

There were two tugs to her skirt before she asked him if he were ready; two rearrangements of her silverware; two menus; two courses; two careful sips before she nodded approval of the wine; two false starts before she began to speak.

So it wasn't really fair of him: when he initiated the first kiss, when he leaned in to taste everything of her, to breathe in her scent, before pulling away and muttering of propriety, he knew she would have to complete the second.


	2. Insulation

**"Insulation"**

* * *

Riza felt a little guilty about thinking it, but the rain _was_ lovely, really. There was something beautiful in the way it held and softened the landscape, muffling the stray figures in rolls of misted velvet.

Maybe – maybe she couldn't help but love it because of him, because of the way he'd lift his head on those days and blearily announce that he couldn't be of any use, with weather like that, and return, groundhog-like, to his burrow in her side.

Maybe it was because of the way the rain drumming on the roof blended with his soft breaths, the way the weight of his head seemed all the more comforting when the world was gone.

Maybe it was because of the way the silence allowed her to think that they two were the last on earth. Lord, how joyous that would be.


	3. Sacrifice

**"Sacrifice"**

* * *

He asked her once if she would die for him. She knew his propensities, knew that the answer would send him spinning into some morbidity, yet she answered anyway, for fear of what her silence might imply.

And so he sat there, chin upon arms upon knees drawn to his chest, and thought about it for a long while. Then he asked her if she believed in God.

When she answered, he shook his head and marveled at it. That she would lay down her life to save his, and wouldn't even expect a reward – that she would die and would never even get to know whether or not he lived, whether or not she had even saved him – that she would lose her chance at happiness just for his – he professed that it astounded him.

When she asked him in return if he would ever lay down his life for someone, he thought about that, too, watching her all the while, then replied that he might be able to, if he loved them. He said that he might dare the darkness for that – for love.

Riza just smiled and cleaned her gun.


	4. Frigidity

**"Frigidity"**

* * *

The best days of all were deep in winter. Normally, she would shy away from contact, from hugging and cuddling and all those sorts of things, speaking of how it wasn't proper, really, as if any of this were proper. It took him a while to figure out that it gave her a measure of comfort to not be decked with the trimmings of love, to make this into a strictly utilitarian thing – a straight-lined romance, almost military in its execution.

But on those lovely days in wintertime, her loathing of the cold would overcome her deep-seated guilt. On those days, she would wake and groan about her cold feet, then turn against his side and drape herself over him in an attempt to keep away from the cold air. Within a few minutes, she'd duck under the covers completely and curl up on top of him.

He'd join her a moment later in the heated darkness, and she'd mutter that he was letting the cold air in. He'd quiet her with a kiss. Then she'd wrap herself around him, she'd hold onto him almost with a desperation, and he'd kiss her eyes, her forehead, her lips, and she'd laugh, and then they would lay like that until the heat became too much and he stirred and let the cold air in, and she extricated herself with an irritable sigh.

She always started to frown around the time when reddened leaves began to drop. Roy noticed her annoyance, and so hid his smile.


	5. Exotery

**"Exotery"**

* * *

They had a tradition, the two of them, of going outside on the rare summer's day when Roy had finished his paperwork. He'd have an alchemic text, she her guns; she'd clean her weapons as he honed his. They'd always sit together, back to back but for each time the same tree, a thin and aged willow. He'd be able to feel her every tremor and breath through the slight wood; he'd know whenever she moved onto the next gun, when she set her burden down to tilt her head back and watch the clouds.

He'd be able to feel it when, on as the summer days dripped into fall days and the wind shifted to blow chill from Central, she began to shiver. When he felt her trembling, he'd set down his book, and without looking find her hand upon the ground and curl his fingers about it.

She would down in a breath and whisper, breathe, that it wasn't seemly – it wasn't proper – that anyone could see them out there, and was he really willing to give everything up for that? But even so, her trembling hand would turn upwards, and she'd slide her fingers between his and grip, fiercely.


	6. Libations

**"Libations"**

* * *

Hers was tea. She frowned upon teabags, using instead loose-leaf in the same old, chipped teapot she'd brought with her, wrapped in newspaper, when she'd first come to Central – there were more efficient ways to make tea, yes, but there was comfort in tradition. She drank the entire pot without any fripperies, without lemon or anything of the sort, enjoying instead the fragrant honesty of it.

His was coffee. He liked to brew it thick and heavy, bitter to the point where it made him shudder and set his jaw when he drank that first experimental sip. After that one drink he would stir in sugar and straight cream, enough that Riza would sigh and caution him that he wasn't going to be nearly so popular with the ladies when he couldn't even fit into the regulation uniform. He'd smile at her and say he had a fast metabolism, and when she countered that when he was old, it wasn't going to be nearly so fast, he laughed and told her that at that point it wouldn't matter. What use, he'd ask, somehow making his question sound sweet, would he have for attracting women when he'd probably either be happily married or dead?

Maybe it was sweet because of the way he fussed about with her old teapot, trying to learn how to make her drink even as she tried her hand with the coffee-pot.


	7. Abundance

**"Abudance"**

* * *

She'd been to the ocean, once, back when she was young. It was still at least marginally safe to travel, then, so her mother had taken her and her brother south.

Riza had hated it, at first, the long hot rides in cramped economy trains, with nothing to anticipate but weather going even hotter. But lord, if she'd but known what lay before her, if she'd known of that vast and winded plain, of the soulful blue-green-gray that stirred itself up and forward, of the weeping breeze that pushed the nauseous heat backwards to brood over streets so far from her – if she'd but known, she'd have gone with joyous heart, with bent knee as a suppliant, joyous before the proposition of seeing the face of God.

He smiled when she promised that she'd take him there, take him to see that ageless expanse, to feel that faithful breeze. He reminded her that it wasn't safe to travel, now, even for someone like him. She sniffed, gently, and told him that he was a fool if he thought she'd let anything happen to him.


	8. History

**"History"**

* * *

He'd ask for books on alchemy, but Riza always gave him histories. It made him laugh a little when his expectations and not his wishes were fulfilled – when he peeled back the tissue paper to reveal a narrative about the downfall of an empire, about some unlikely bit of humanity against the cruelty of a dispassionate mother-state.

She knew, even if he didn't, that he preferred it that way. He asked because alchemy was his duty, but duty was for the workplace; she wanted to feed his passion. And she knew that she was right in her choice, watching him as he found himself in Cassius, in Brutus – as he curled about the fierce crumbling of the Roman Empire as though it were his very soul.


	9. Perversity

**"Perversity"**

* * *

Perversely, Roy liked to travel not for the places he might go but for the actual trip itself. There had been a time, yes, a time before when going places was glorious and new, but that had been beaten out of him. He'd once seen a bit of graffiti scrawled on Central's walls: _Join the military, go to exotic, interesting places, meet exotic, interesting people and kill them. _He'd laughed, perversely, at the pithy little bit of truth.

But for all that he'd come to dread the destination, still, the travel was a joy. It was peace in a life without peace, a long stretch where he could just sit and, buoyed by the hum of the engine, not have to worry of action or inaction – where he could merely let the things to think of turn over in his head. It was a time when he could look at passing trees beauty aflame without worrying about what they might hide, rivers bracing chill without worrying how they might be used against him – when he could watch her without worrying about what she might be worrying about, without worrying about what others might be thinking about.

He loved it for the way the rare passing headlight would transform her hair gray in dark into honey in light, where the requisite short honk of recognition as one military car passed another would cause her to jerk up for one moment, and reach down for her gun, and, once content, slide back down into sleep without ever truly being awake.

Normally he treasured most of all the moments when he was able to speak with her, when she was unguarded and open, not curled against her seat with face obscured. Travel brought out his perversity.


	10. Compulsion

**"Compulsion"**

* * *

The most painful for Riza was in his abdomen, a puckered kiss. That had been her fault entirely: she'd thought they were out of danger, she'd felt content to talk with him, to not pay attention. She'd been wrong, so he'd been in the hospital for weeks, stinking of flowing rot and crying out in his sleep, an opium drip holding him below the surface, until finally he came back and she could let out the breath she'd been holding since that first liquid tear.

The most painful for _him_ was in his shoulder, where a bit of shrapnel on the wing had made its nest. That had been her fault, as well. She should have known, should have found out that the target kept a personal distillery, but she didn't. So when he snapped, the clay walls of the home scattered and took to flight, and he crumpled. She'd been sure that he'd fallen, but she'd thought that of him often. Now, alive, he grimaced each time the weather turned.

There were others, too, lying menacing upon his neck, twisted upon his thigh, and she would trace over each one of them, study them, masochistically, furiously. She'd recall every furrow of her failure. If he caught her doing it, he'd catch her hands and kiss them, and tell her that she was much more than he could ever wish for, and try to distract her with the sky. She made sure he never caught her; despite his sincerity, his thanks seemed a mockery.


	11. Gifts

**"Gifts"**

* * *

Flowers were inappropriate. They were supposed to evoke her sensuality, after all, with their softness and their sweetness, but her hands were rough from the trigger's scrape, and she smelled always of gunpowder and ink. And there was always that bit of uneasiness in the back of his mind, his scientist's mind – he could never look at a flower without thinking of what its purpose was. And that was an uncomfortable thought, when applied to her. She was above such crude symbolism.

And she'd never had a sweet tooth, for him to bring her chocolates. A bit of sugar to chase away her tea's bitterness, perhaps, but that filled up the quotient for the day. And what else could he give her? A wine would go undrunk; caviar uneaten; beef stew was hardly romantic.

She'd laugh at him, and rightly so, if he brought her a teddy bear. She would say that he was too stuck in tradition, in clichés – it was cute, yes, but she didn't need cute from him, not at this point. She didn't need clichés.

So, for lack of anything else, Roy brought her a five-pointed leaf, reddened in autumn's first bite. It seemed appropriate, somehow, smelling as it did of blue-edged days.


	12. Disarray

**"Disarray"**

* * *

She'd always found his hair endearing – boyish, even. Nothing could keep it still. Each morning he'd try to coax it flat, and each morning, it would spring up again. So, every once in a while, Riza would take the comb from him and have him sit on the floor, before her perch on the edge of the bed. Then she would wet her hand on her tongue and run it through his hair; in its wake would follow the comb. Ultimately, her struggles were no more fruitful than his own: the restless strands, chastised for but a moment, would inevitably raise their heads, and he would lean back into her lap, nose wrinkled, and call her _Mom. _She would look at him sharply and raise an eyebrow until he reached up and pulled her down for a kiss.

But it was just as well: when he slicked his hair back, forcing it still with gels, it meant cruel things. Hair was calm for events of state. Hair was calm for funerals.

It was conflict between the childish and the adult, the irrepressible and the repressed – so when his hair fought against control, it meant that still, there was happiness to find. There were joys in store.

Besides – even when his hair was slicked back, still it fought the bonds of order. There was comfort in that.


	13. Shedding

**"Shedding"**

* * *

And if cold mornings were wonderful, cold evenings were doubly so. Before they left, she'd ask him to wait a moment as she got ready, so he'd lean against the wall and wait. And she'd be so focused on pulling on her myriad scarves, hats, coats, trying to shove her double-clad arm into yet another narrow sleeve, that she wouldn't even notice as he watched her and her elaborate ritual for the full ten minutes it took.

Since he enjoyed the chill – found it bracing, really – she'd insist that they walk home even as she struggled to pull her hat more snug. If it was hard to argue with her normally, it was doubly difficult when they were arguing over a favor for him, so he would just smile and hold the door for her, walk a step closer as they passed the cold hood of the car, perhaps gilded with a bit of snow, some ice. And at her inevitable shiver even before they were halfway through, he'd slide his arm about her shoulders and pull her inside his overcoat. She'd sigh and lean her head against his neck. It was, somehow, safer. Perhaps scarves and hats and coats gave anonymity in bulk.

And when they got home, she'd stand in the foyer, scowling and struggling with the intricacies of her clothing. Again, he'd pull her against him, and he'd tenderly unwind the scarf from about her neck, then tend to her buttoned coat (his hands more dexterous in their familiarity with gloves). She'd shrug it off and give it to him even as he slipped mittens from her hands. She'd leave him, then, clothing falling in her wake. Inevitably, by the time he had pulled off his boots, the kettle was keening. It was lovely, in those moments, to anticipate how his coffee, her tea, was always doubly wonderful in the chill.


	14. Savor

**"Savor"**

* * *

She smelled like soap and gunsmoke, and, somehow, in some corner of his mind, he'd rather expected her to taste the same. He'd expected her lips to be bitter and fragrant, both at once, the odor of flowers overlaying the odor of war.

Distressingly long stretches of time were spend wondering the truth of it. He'd listened in a few times when others speculated what it would be like to kiss her (never participated, of course; even jokes weren't seemly), but they never even mentioned what they thought she'd taste like. No, it was all talk about how they bet that she'd _change _under the influence of a good man, beneath a good kiss, and how she'd lose that stiffness, all in tones that made him strangely uncomfortable, strangely irritable.

But even if he were the only one, he wondered, and decided that she'd be masked and bitter.

And he was right in a few respects, but wrong in most others. She was bitter, yes, but it was a warm bitterness, not clinical; tea, not gunpowder. And there was the most curious sweetness to her, despite her abstinence from sugar, despite her no-nonsense diet.

Roy had said to her once that the flavor must have simply been her natural kindness, goodness, welling up. She'd shoved him off the bed.


	15. Lamentation

**"Lamentation"**

* * *

He complained. It was a terrible habit, and they both knew it – matter of fact, and she enjoyed the little bit of irony here, he often complained that he complained. He lamented that it drove people away, that it made him seem like an asshole – but it was just such an ingrained habit at this point that it would take an enormous force of will to stop. 

He complained even of things he liked. He'd always say that his haircut was too short even as he surveyed himself in the mirror, leaning his head from side to side with a tiny smile playing about his lips. He'd always be careful to say too short, too, for fear that someone would offer to take scissors to his head to solve the problem.

Or he'd complain of a wine even as he tipped his chin up, eyes half-lidded, tracing a long finger around the lip of his glass until it rang and he snapped from his reverie, hastily covering the crystal and complaining of his rudeness.

His complaints weren't lies, though, or at least not _just _lies. Frequently, they were in regard to quality of work. Reports were reviewed by a startlingly critical eye, a hand hardly sparing in writing responses. It was paradoxical, really, but he wished for perfection.

He'd stopped complaining of Riza after their first night. Damndest thing. He hadn't hesitated to tell her, before, what she'd done wrong, but now he handled her like an ancient text, decayed and half a breath from crumbling. She'd told him that if he wanted to avoid conspicuousness, he'd go on like before. He'd avoided her gaze, and she couldn't help but be both irritated and charmed by his sentimentality.


	16. Dependency

**"Dependency"**

* * *

And so even though Roy actually enjoyed the military functions, the grand parties, the opportunities they presented, still he complained to anyone who wouldn't run screaming in the opposite direction whenever they saw him with _that look _upon their face. That generally consisted of her and her alone, gracious soul; she'd listen and say nothing as he spoke, stopping him only to adjust the skirt of his dress uniform or the curve of the collar.

On the night of a promotion, he'd talk about the undeserving recipient. How their exploits and successes in the East had been the products of luck, really, and they were morally bankrupt to boot – shouldn't that be taken into account? It mattered to him.

Or before a ball, he'd harp on the musicians they'd asked to play. No sense of rhythm. Wouldn't know a crescendo if it smacked them upside the head with a pole.

He'd complained only once, early on, about how these things wasted time. He'd talked as he buttoned his shirt and frowned into the mirror about how it was going to be dark a long time that night, about how long nights were precious for the time they gave to the two of them – about how such a night, crafted for them, was to be given to a bumbling fool.

Her hand had frozen in the act of pinning up her hair when he turned to her, and she looked at him with eyes wide, eyes fearful. Then she'd looked away.

At this point he couldn't remember who had insisted upon it, but they'd gone to the party separately, spent it separate, not speaking, not touching. He'd danced a few songs (his partners asking all the while if everything was all right), downed considerable amounts of champagne, and called for a car early.

He'd been trying to pull the cork from another bottle of wine when someone knocked on the door, and he'd opened it to find her there, shivering in spite of her gloves, her scarves, her hats, her coats. He'd pulled her inside, into the warmth, into his arms, enveloping her until she stopped shuddering, rocking her until her breath steadied and she melted.

Then he'd held her at arms length, surveyed her face, and found something deeper by far than fear. He'd kissed her, laughing for no reason, unwinding the scarf from her neck even as he offered to boil some water for her. She shook her head, smiling, laughing too, and said that she could do it, that she was good at it. And he smiled at the coat she shrugged into his hands, something fierce and joyous gripping his throat.

* * *

(A/N: Sweet Jesus, was that a plot? Noooo!) 


	17. Protection

**"Protection"**

* * *

It was odd bit of personification – more so, given how prone she wasn't to bits of poetry – but she liked to think of the moon as beneficent.

The sun, see – the sun was cruel. It burned and left death in its wake. It could sap the water from a body, leave them shriveled in the sand. It would scorch any bit of skin left exposed, overzealous, perhaps, in its punishment, overbearing in its chastisement. And, cruelest of all, it would cast the world and all its deeds and misdeeds into bas relief, would drive away all but the strongest of shadows and leave even those weakened.

In the moonlight, though – in the moonlight, everything was gentled, cooled. The moon turned puddles of rainwater standing in the street to silver.

And the moon, the kindly matron, allowed a nighttime rendezvous under her protective gaze. She would even go so far as to conceal it from the wrathful sun, turning blue to a gray that could have been any color in daylight, rendering features pitched and obscure. Under the moon's patronage, Riza could have been anyone, wrapped in anyone's arms.


	18. Anthem

**"Anthem"**

* * *

He was always a dancer. Riza could, should she choose to do so, call out a dance step, and he could stop whatever he was doing, execute it perfectly, and go back to what it was he was doing. Sleeping, even – snore, fox trot, snore, all without ever opening an eye. That was her hypothesis, anyway. She'd never actually tried it out, but watching him dance, it seemed likely. 

His was a soul of music, steeped in it. He could tap out perfect rhythm, could memorize a song – could _write _one, could compose harmonies on the spot. He could hum a melody to accompany the tapping of her feet, and it would always be she who broke it, stumbling over a bump, or just trying to avoid the self-consciousness of it all.

Sometimes he would sing to her. He had a mediocre voice, really, but he would sing with such exuberance that it made him wonderful. When they were alone, when he was dressing, puttering about the kitchen or the bedroom, he'd sing her something jazzy, break off what he was doing to grab her hands and swing her into a one-two step and implore her to sing along. Normally, she laughed him off, pulled away, but every once in a while, after a great deal of badgering, she'd let out a few hesitant notes. He'd laugh, amazed, delighted. She'd stop, and shake her head when he insisted she continue.

She stopped because she was embarrassed, yes, but also because he always stopped when she sang, and she liked to hear him. He had a comforting voice – a warm voice. It enfolded itself around her. Some days, she would like nothing more than to sit on the window-seat, sipping tea and watching the rainfall, wrapped to her nose in his voice.


	19. Incandescence

**"Incandescence"**

* * *

Her mother had told her that on a night before it snowed, the sky glowed yellow. 

They'd lived in the east, then – the east, with its dusty hot summers and drippy wet winters, so her mother had said that she'd just have to take it on faith. She'd see it one day. So she took it, just as she took all other promises, on faith. Her mother had promised success, and happiness, and true love, and a sky smeared with yellow incandescence, and Riza trusted.

She'd been with him, the first time she saw it. Unable to get to sleep, she'd turned on her side, toward the window, and seen it, seen the clouds lit from below with a thrumming yellow light, as though the sun lurked just below her sightline. And as she sat up, transfixed, the yellow sky seemed to relax with a great sigh, and a fuzziness, a static seemed to filter down from the heavens.

She reflected as he sat up behind her, as he pressed his lips to her bare shoulder and wrapped her in the warmth of his arms, upon the truth of her mother's promises.


	20. Exhalation

**"Exhalation"**

* * *

She smelled to him like the spring, though it wasn't exactly a smell, and it wasn't exactly the spring, so. It was hard thing to define. But in the late winter, the early spring, the air gained a certain quality, a certain restlessness – a freshness, a beckoning, like white curtains fluttering over a window to an airy room, the linen whispering _Come hither, come hither. _It was like paper tumbling from a table, fluttering to the ground; it was like the feel of distant salt from the imagined ocean he'd only ever known through her descriptions. It was like the sigh of trees for hours, for eternity, leaves rubbing together to moan, _Come hither._

And she smelled of it, felt of it, tasted of it, this sensation that was nor scent nor feeling nor taste. It was as though she exhaled it from every pore, this restlessness, this late-winter-early-spring desire, a supine goddess of unconscious sensuality.

It was like the air before a lightning strike. It was like she tore the very molecules apart, leaving the burn-sweet scent of ozone. Beneath her skin stretched and slack lay a sea of ions, roiling with potential. If he delved inside her, perhaps, he would find nothing but promise, but he'd be forever charged and forever marked by what he drew from her and she from him.

It hurt to be away from her, sometimes, just as it hurt when that scent, borne by wind, faded as spring progressed. And spring always progressed, and never lived up to those few first days. Roy would take the scent of potential before the scent of flowers.

* * *

(A/N: Number twenty. I'm excited. This one ended up a bit, you know, less innocent than I had first intended, but, meh. I have to justify that PG rating somewhere, right?) 


	21. Obsequy

**"Obsequy"**

* * *

He wanted to be buried, he said. There was something in bones, in stones laid above the head and feet, that was permanent and reassuring. There was always the possibility of his failure. And books were lost, generals eclipsed; but if his flesh remained, if his bones remained, if his dust remained, perhaps, somehow, so would he.

So Riza told him that she wanted to be cremated. There was something noble, she said, in the flight of ashes, in the age-old ascent of embers to the sky. And she had no need for permanence, for there was this moment, there was the momentary joy; there was the sight of him, the sound of him, the breath of him, that made death and everything it entailed insignificant. She had no need of the afterlife, for with him, she had life.

He complained of his lack of courage. He shook his head, his brow furrowed, and said that he was simply too terrified of being forgotten. He was afraid that without something solid, to intrude upon the daily routine, she would forget him. So she informed him with all frankness that he was an idiot.

He admitted besides that he simply didn't want to be burned; there was too much poetry in it, too much justice. She kissed his forehead and held him for a long while.


	22. Reflection

**"Reflection"**

* * *

She asked him to turn the lights off, some nights as she sat by the window. Those were the gorgeous nights, without exception, those were the lovely nights, the nights of strong winds and heavy rains, or strong winds and desert sky where black lingered above purple lingered above blue above green surrounding a moon that gleamed like a scraped coin. Those were the still nights, when everything seemed to hold its breath in anticipation – of winter, of spring, small death or small rebirth. Those were the nights that seemed to glow from the belly with far-off phosphorescence, or with snow tumbling end over end, buffeted by light.

She'd say she couldn't see, sitting by the window, wrapped in a blanket and his arms atop that, a mug of tea warming her hands. He'd segue into the principles of two-way mirrors, the peculiarities of optics, the interplay of light and dark upon transparent surfaces. She'd elbow him, usually lightly, in the stomach and tell him to turn off the lights, _please. _He'd point out that she was sitting on his legs, and would guide the back of her head down upon his shoulder, and she wouldn't press the point.

Thing was, Roy didn't want to turn off the lights. The interplay of light and dark upon the glass left an image of her face reflected before the night sky. It was that face, lit up by or thoughtful about what she saw, that he wanted to watch. Snow, rain, wind, burnished moon be damned – he needed no sight to watch, to inspire him, but that of her eyesreflecting the changes of the weather.


	23. Confessions

**"Confessions"**

* * *

Neither of them ever so much as mentioned the word _love._

It was, Roy suspected, impossible for her to say anything like that. It simply wasn't her way. Although she was a courageous woman, she never took risks; and the very word hummed with danger. Love was an open car, a back alley, a gown without a place to holster a gun – foolish. To use a word like love was to lay down her weapons, to spread her arms to the advancing lines.

For his part, he had used it too often, demeaned it, and so he couldn't let her see the sullied thing. How could he bring before her, _her, _a high concept brought so low? Other women had demanded devotion, demanded nothings, and so love became nothing, nothing but a thing to coax greater pliancy.

That wasn't what he wanted from her. All he wanted was the curve of her cheek, the snap of her wit, the feel of her skin; all he wanted was her high and breathy voice joining him hesitantly in song; all he wanted was her self-conscious avoidance of the word _love _that showed him, as no one else had showed him, that the concept was real.


	24. Mistakes

**"Mistakes"**

* * *

It was ill-advised from the start. Riza knew that well. There was nothing sensible about it, nothing rational. Even if he hadn't been her commanding officer, even if he weren't so ambitious, even if they hadn't been besieged on every side by enemies hidden and overt – even then, it would have been a strange pairing, she straightforward, he roundabout, she corners and he cornerless. 

And the fact that he was her commanding officer, and the fact that he strove for the top, and the fact that there were so many bent on their destruction made it madness.

It was the way he looked at her, though, the way he caressed her hair and the side of her face, the way his mouth always had a faint alcohol burn as though she could get drunk off his kisses, the way he held her to keep her warm in the winter, the way his eyes would smile when she spoke to him, that turned it into the sweetest madness of all. It was a love that made her feel as if she was falling, and though the fall might well end in her destruction, the exhilaration in the pit of her being was well worth any eventuality.

Besides, the very fact that it was madness, that it was such a mistake – that, in itself, was a sort of intoxication.


	25. Competition

**"Competition"**

* * *

Come winter, the river would freeze, and come spring it would thaw again. And every year, on that first day when the morning dawned with the cacophony of monstrous creaks and groans and growls that meant the ice was falling apart and falling away, he would be one of several dozen who would strip to next to nothing and take a potentially fatal plunge into the glacial water. Even as snow still stood on the riverbanks, even as the wind still sliced sharp, he would stand, trying to suppress his shivers and watching Riza on the opposite bank until whichever general had chosen to brave the weather in order to participate in the tradition called for them to start.

Then he'd dive in headlong, sharp himself and graceful, and she would watch from the other side, wrapped in coats and scarves and hats under hoods, holding her breath against the fiery cold air, as his dark head surfaced, coughing for breath as the frigid water struck the air from his lungs. Every swimmer paused for their breath while the observers on the opposite shore jeered at the lack of progress, but he was the only one she watched. And he was among the first out, with long, tightly controlled strokes, tension the only thing keeping his arms from shaking loose.

And he was among the leaders of the group until those last moments, when he was nearing the opposite shore and reared up from the water to search for her. He lost moments and distance finding her, changing his course so that she was the one to whom he swam, and when finally he clambered out onto the bank and collapsed against her, when she wrapped him in the towel she'd been holding and pulled off a glove to clasp his hand, so cold it no longer felt human - by that time, he had lost.

The general handed out awards for the performances of the swimmers as she got him coffee spiced heavily with brandy, as she returned to him and he accepted her gift gratefully, drinking deep as the life came back to him and she pulled a coat over his shoulders, wrapped a scarf around his neck, chiding him for the inevitable cold he would catch.

Every year he came to her from the frigid deaths of the mortal river. No one commented. If it was she who tended to him every year, it must have been coincidence; for he wouldn't give up the chance to win just so his adjutant would be the one to tend to him. He wasn't like that, wasn't the sort of man who would smile joy to stop the world or stop her heart just because her fingers brushed against his in giving him libation, and she wasn't one to pull off a glove and face the cold of the air, of his skin, just because she craved the reassurance that he before her was no illusion. Neither, of course, was that sentimental.

* * *

(A/N: Just barely under 500, which, I believe, makes it still technically a drabble. Of course, this author's note puts it well over the 500 mark. DAMN YOU, YAHWEH!) 


End file.
